ON THE

MUSICAL MODES

OF THE

HINDUS:

WRITTEN IN 1784, AND SINCE MUCH ENLARGED,

BY THE PRESIDENT.

MUSICK belongs, as a Science, to an interefting part of natural philofophy, which, by mathematical deductions from conftant phenomena, explains the causes and properties of found, limits the number of mixed, or harmonick, founds to a certain feries, which perpetually recurs, and fixes the ratio, which they bear to each other, or to one leading term; but, confidered as an Art, it combines the founds, which philofophy diftinguishes in such a manner as to gratify our ears, or affect our imaginations, or, by uniting both objects, to captivate the fancy while it pleases the fenfe, and, fpeaking, as it were, the language of beautiful nature, to raise correfpondent ideas and emotions in the mind of the hearer: it then, and then only becomes what we call a fine art, allied very nearly to verfe, painting, and rhetorick, but fubordinate in

its

its functions to pathetick poetry, and inferior in its power to genuine eloquence.

Thus it is the province of the philofopher, to dif cover the true direction and divergence of found propagated by the fucceffive compreffions and expanfions of air, as the vibrating body advances and recedes; to fhow why founds themfelves may excite a tremulous motion in particular bodies, as in the known experiment of inftruments tuned in unifon; to demonstrate the law, by which all the particles of air, when it undulates with great quickness, are continually accelerated and retarded; to compare the number of pulfes in agitated air with that of the vibrations, which caufe them: to compute the velocities and intervals of thofe pulfes in atmofpheres of different denfity and elafticity; to account, as well as he can, for the affections, which mufick produces; and, generally, to investigate the many wonderful appearances, which it exhibits: but the artist, without confidering, and even without knowing, any of the fublime theorems in the philofophy of found, may attain his end by a happy felection of melodies and accents adapted to paffionate verfe, and of times conformable to regular metre ; and, above all, by modulation, or the choice and variation of those modes, as they are called, of which, as they are contrived and arranged by the Hindus, it is my defign, and fhall be my endeavour, to give you a general notion with all the perfpicuity, that the fubject will admit.

ALTHOUGH

ALTHOUGH We muft affign the first rank, tranf cendently and beyond all comparison, to that powerful mufick, which may be denominated the fifter of poetry and eloquence, yet the lower art of pleafing the fenfe by a fucceffion of agreeable founds, not only has merit and even charms, but may, I perfuade myself, be applied on a variety of occafions to falutary purposes: whether, indeed, the fenfation of hearing be caufed, as many fufpe&t, by the vibrations of an elaftick ether flowing over the auditory nerves and propelled along their folid capillaments, or whether the fibres of our nerves, which feem indefinitely divifible, have, like the strings of a lute, peculiar vibrations proportioned to their length and degree of tenfion, we have not fufficient evidence to decide; but we are very fure that the whole nervous fyftem is affected in a fingular manner by combinations of found, and that melody alone will often relieve the mind, when it is oppreffed by intenfe application to bufinefs or ftudy. The old musician, who rather figuratively, we may suppose, than with philofophical feriouf nefs, declared the foul itself to be nothing but barmony, provoked the sprightly remark of CICERO, that be drew his philofophy from the art which he professed; but if, without departing from his own art, he had merely defcribed the human frame as the nobleft and sweetest of musical inftruments, endued with a natural difpofition to refonance and fimpathy, alternately affecting and affected by the foul which pervades it, his description might, perhaps, have

been

been phyfically juft, and certainly ought not to have been haftily ridiculed: that any medical purpofe may be fully answered by musick, I dare not affert; but after food, when the operations of digestion and abforption give fo much employment to the veffels, that a temporary state of mental repose must be found, efpecially in hot climates, effential to health, it seems reasonable to believe, that a few agreeable airs, either heard or played without effort, must have all the good effects of fleep and none of its disadvantages; putting the foul in tune, as MILTON fays, for any fubfequent exertion; an experiment, which has often been fuccefffully made by myself, and pleases, may eafily repeat. add, I cannot give equal know how to difbelieve the teftimony of men,

which any one, who

Of what I am

Of what I am going to

evidence; but hardly

who

had no fyftem of their own to fupport, and could have no intereft in deceiving me: firft, I have been affured by a credible eye witnefs, that two wild antelopes used often to come from their woods to the place, where a more favage beaft, SIRA'JU DDAULAH, entertained himself with concerts, and that they listened to the ftrains with an appearance of pleasure, till the monfter, in whofe foul there was no mufick, shot one of them to display his archery: fecondly, a learned native of this country told me, that he had frequently feen the most venomous and malignant fnakes leave their holes, upon hearing tunes on a flute, which, as he fuppofed, gave them peculiar delight; and, thirdly, an intel

ligent Perfian, who repeated his ftory again and again, and permitted me to write down from his lips, declared, he had more than once been prefent, when a celebrated lutanift, Mírzá MOHAMMED, furnamed BULBUL, was playing to a large company in a grove near Shíráz, where he diftin&ly faw the nightingales trying to vie with the mufician, fometimes warbling on the trees, fometimes fluttering from branch to branch, as if they wished to approach the inftrument, whence the melody proceeded, and at length dropping on the ground in a kind of extafy, from which they were foon raised, he affured me, by a change of the mode.

THE aftonishing effects afcribed to mufick by the 'old Greeks, and, in our days, by the Chinese, Perfians, and Indians, have probably been exaggerated and embellished; nor, if fuch effects had been really produced, could they be imputed, I think, to the mere influence of founds, however combined or modified: it may, therefore, be fufpected, (not that the accounts are wholly fictitious, but) that fuch wonders were performed by mufick in its largeft fenfe, as it is now defcribed by the Hindus, that is, by the union of voices, inftruments, and action; for fuch is the complex idea conveyed by the word Sangita, the fimple meaning of which is no more than fymphony; but most of the Indian books on this art confift accordingly of three parts, gána, vádya, nritya, or song, percuffion, and dancing; the firft of which includes the measures of poetry, the fecond extends to inftrumental mufick of all forts,

and